


If One Thing Had Been Different

by notsodarling



Series: flickers of light [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Handwavey Alien Science, Kid Fic, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 21:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling/pseuds/notsodarling
Summary: Michael encounters his time-traveling daughter from the future.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: flickers of light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2217039
Comments: 24
Kudos: 57





	If One Thing Had Been Different

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this two months ago and then let it sit in my WIP folder, not knowing what to do with it.
> 
> Title from "the 1" by Taylor Swift

Something was wrong. **  
**

Michael sits up in bed, and glances around the empty trailer. Everything looks normal, but something doesn't feel right. He rubs the sleep from his eyes, cursing himself for napping in the during the middle of the day, and pushes himself to sit up, throwing his feet over the side of the bed. He'd been working on fixing Max's Jeep - again - and it'd made more sense to crash in the Airstream than to drive home and come back later.

Sliding his feet into his boots, Michael pushes open the door and steps out into the late afternoon sunlight. The junkyard is quiet, and Max's Jeep is right where he left it, hood open, toolbox on the ground in front of the vehicle.

If the problem wasn't here above ground, then maybe it was below.

Michael telekinetically pushes the trailer back, exposing the hatch that leads down into his workshop. That's when he notices the light, as if there was a spotlight down there and it had been switched on.

Nothing good can come from investigating the light, he knows, but he also doesn't feel as though there are any other options. The bunker should be dark, and plus, Michael knows each and every light down there because he installed them. Nothing down there gives off that amount of luminescence.

At the bottom of the ladder, he turns around and comes face to face with a girl, who can't be more than thirteen, standing in front of what looks like some sort of portal, and the source of the light. The moment they make eye contact, recognition flashes across her face, and the portal snaps shut as she leaps forward, arms wrapping around Michael's middle. Stunned, Michael doesn't try to pry her off him, lets her bury her face in his chest as he tries to wrap his head about what just happened.

"Who are you?" Michael asks, getting his hands on her arms finally and gently pushing her back. It's also his first opportunity to get a good look at her, and the sight nearly knocks the wind out of him - she looks so much like Alex it makes something in Michael's chest go tight. Except for the hair - she's got curls that rival his own, loose ringlets framing her face and falling down around her shoulders.

"Dad said you wouldn't know me," she replies unhelpfully, but Michael feels like he has a very good idea who dad is. He watches as she looks around the bunker, eyes growing wide when she sees the unfinished console laying on a table near the back of the room. "You really haven't finished it yet."

"It's missing a piece-" he starts before catching himself because she still hasn't told him who she is. "Who are you?"

"What year is it?" She asks instead, stepping toward the table in the middle of the room, fingertips running over his sketches, studying them. 

"Twenty twenty-one," he replies, hoping that answering her question will get him answers too. But instead, she just laughs, smiling wide and glancing back at him, reminding Michael of nothing except Alex.

"Oh," she replies quietly, dropping the protractor she'd been fiddling with back on the table. "I'm not even born for another two years."

That's something he both is excited to know and not at all, because he and Alex haven't really talked about kids yet. They've only started to make progress on them and how to navigate the relationship they've both always wanted but could never get right. Kids hasn't been something they've talked about yet. At least, not as a concrete plan - Michael wants them. He's always wanted a family with Alex, since that moment he fell hard and fast in high school. But he's seen the apprehension on Alex's face, knows he's terrified of turning out like his own father. And while Michael knows nothing could be further from the truth, he doesn't think pushing Alex here is the best decision, and drops the subject when it comes up.

"You gonna give me a name, kid? Or am I going to have to guess."

Her eyes go slightly sad, the same way Alex's have so many times when Michael has said something he doesn't know how to respond to.

"It's Deia." Michael watches as she crans her neck, looking up past the ladder to the exit. "Where is dad?"

"He's uh," Michael sputters at her use of the word _dad_ , his brain still trying to catch up that she means Alex. "He's at work."

She nods, grabbing hold of the ladder. "Oh, right. That stupid military contract you two always fight about."

But before he can ask what she's talking about, Deia has climbed the ladder and Michael can only scramble to follow her back up into the daylight. He slams the hatch shut behind him, and glances around looking for her. 

Deia is walking along his truck, hand running along the side across the patchwork paint job, a smile on her face as she stops at the passenger side door, fingers wrapping around the handle, but not pulling it open. He watches as she peers inside, leaning her forehead against the glass window, as if taking in a memory.

Michael uses his telekinesis to move the Airstream back into place, and takes a couple steps toward her, standing near the firepit.

"Dad has a newer car, but after I got old enough to not need the booster seat, we started taking your truck more. And there was always something between you two about this truck, like it held some importance you never wanted to share with me."

Even though he's known his daughter for a grand total of fifteen minutes, he knows that's not true. But perhaps telling your kid you were homeless as a teen isn't the best option, or that her parents used to fuck on the tailgate. That the truck is one constant in their relationship, something that's always been there through every up and down over the years.

He desperately wants Alex here with him, wants Alex to meet the daughter they haven't had yet, but who is full of memories of the three of them. As Deia stays with her forehead pressed against the glass, Michael fumbles his cell phone out of his pocket and texts Alex.

> **To Alex:** What time will you be home?

It takes less than a minute for Alex to respond, which means he's definitely not already driving. 

> **From Alex:** Not for a couple hours.

It's not unexpected, and Michael doesn't really want to drop a _hey our teenage daughter from the future appeared in my workshop today_ bomb on him through a text message.

> **From Alex:** Everything okay?

"Fuck," he curses, reading Alex's second text. Of course Alex is curious now, Michael generally doesn't text to ask what time Alex will be home, because Alex keeps him informed of his schedule. Especially on days when he knows he'll be home later than normal. Something about trying to become better at communication between them.

> **To Alex:** Just thinking about you.

It's sappy, but he knows it's the best cover he can make at the moment.

But that still leaves the question of what to do with his time traveling daughter from the future. And he still doesn't know why she's even here in the first place, or better yet - _how_ she got here.

At some point during his texts with Alex, she'd moved to sit in one of the old rusted lawn chairs that surround the fire pit he keeps here in the junkyard. He can't bring himself to get rid of it, even though he doesn't really live in his trailer anymore. 

"I can't believe dad knew you'd be here," Deia says, leaning back in the chair and looking up at the sky, her curls hanging over the back. "I thought he was nuts, I thought I'd end up alone wherever I came out and hitchhiking through Roswell.”

"Why'd he send you?" 

Michael thinks it's the obvious question, the most direct, and likely to get him an answer. And tries not to think too hard about what might have happened that made Alex send their daughter back in time. Where was he in this decision?

"To keep me safe.”

“That’s not an answer, kid,” Michael replies when no other explanation is forthcoming.

Deia frowns at him, like he’s just said something ridiculous.

“The twins got sent with grandpa, but I refused to go. Dad was so angry with me-"

Now he’s even more confused. Twins? _Grandpa_? She better be talking about Liz and Max-

"Safe from what?" Michael tries again, interrupting her, ignoring the obvious act of teenage rebellion.

"The Alighting."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
